Bibliodiversity: Denationalizing and Defrancophonizing Francophonie

Thomas, Dominic

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-52726-6_4

Dominic Thomas²

584 Accesses

Abstract

Language policy has historically served to bolster France’s overseas colonial ambitions. Similarities have been recorded in the postcolonial era under the aegis of francophonie and in the French government policy agenda. While President Emmanuel Macron has expressed the desire to turn a new page, critics highlight how diplomatic soft power initiatives continue to prioritize neocolonial ties. Postcolonial studies themselves have been treated with suspicion in France, but a new generation of intellectuals and writers challenges the narrow conceptualization of francophonie, calling for greater bibliodiversity, collectively channeling efforts aimed at reframing the symbiotic link between French as language and France as nation, and advocating for a denationalization, defrancophonization, and decolonizing of francophonie.

We are in a country that is called the French language…

—Alain Mabanckou, “Interview with Alain Mabanckou” (Manteau 2013, p. 15)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 119.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 159.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 159.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
All translations from French are mine unless otherwise noted.
2.
For more information, see Gassama 2008.
3.
Also see Bancel 2012; Diouf 2010.
4.
This work has taken place alongside that of several scholars working in French institutions. See Moura 2007; Smouts 2007; Thomas 2017.
5.
For more information, see Bancel et al. 2016.

References

Alliance Internationale des Éditeurs Indépendants. 2018. https://www.alliance-editeurs.org/-bibliodiversity-indicators,276-?lang=fr.
Bancel, Nicolas. 2012. Que faire des postcolonial studies? Vertus et déraisons de l’accueil critique des postcolonial studies en France. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire 115 (3): 129–147.
Article Google Scholar
Bancel, Nicolas, Pascal Blanchard, and Ahmed Boubeker. 2015. Le grand repli. Paris: La Découverte.
Google Scholar
Bancel, Nicolas, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas, eds. 2016. Vers la guerre des identités? De la fracture coloniale à la révolution ultranationale. Paris: La Découverte.
Google Scholar
———, eds. 2017. The Colonial Legacy in France: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Google Scholar
Barnes, Leslie, and Dominic Thomas. 2017. Introduction: Global France, Global French. Contemporary French Civilization 42 (1): 1–11.
Article Google Scholar
Camus, Renaud. 2012. Le grand remplacement. Neuilly-sur-Seine: Éditions David Reinharc.
Google Scholar
Coquery-Vidrovitch, Catherine. 2017. Postcolonial Studies in French Academia. In The Colonial Legacy in France: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid, ed. Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas, 246–256. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Chapter Google Scholar
Diop, Boris Boubacar. 2006. Doomi Golo. Dakar: Éditions Papyrus Afrique.
Google Scholar
Diouf, Mamadou. 2010. Les postcolonial studies et leur réception dans le champ académique en France. In Ruptures postcoloniales. Les nouveaux visages de la société française, ed. Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, Ahmed Boubeker, Florence Bernault, Françoise Vergès, and Achille Mbembe, 149–158. Paris: La Découverte.
Google Scholar
Dorlin, Elsa. 2006. La matrice de la race. Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la nation française. Paris: La Découverte.
Google Scholar
Forsdick, Charles, Alec G. Hargreaves, and David Murphy, eds. 2010. Transnational French Studies: Postcolonialism and Littérature-monde. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
Google Scholar
France Diplomatie. 2019. Francophony and the French Language. https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/french-foreign-policy/francophony-and-the-french-language.
Gassama, Makhily, ed. 2008. L’Afrique répond à Sarkozy. Contre le discours de Dakar. Paris: Philippe Rey.
Google Scholar
International Organization of Francophonie. 2014. The French Language in the World. Paris: Éditions Nathan. https://www.francophonie.org.
Google Scholar
Kisukidi, Nadia Yala. 2018. Francophonie, un nouveau French Power. La diplomatie de l’attractivité. Revue du Crieur 2: 83–89.
Google Scholar
Le Monde. 2018. Nous, éditeurs indépendants, vivons et faisons vivre la francophonie. February 20.
Google Scholar
Legifrance. n.d. Loi no. 2005-158 du 23 février 2005 portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000000444898&dateTexte=&categorieLien=id.
Mabanckou, Alain. 2018a. Francophonie, langue française: lettre ouverte à Emmanuel Macron. BibliObs. https://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/actualites/20180115.OBS0631/francophonie-langue-francaise-lettre-ouverte-a-emmanuel-macron.html.
———. 2018b. The Tears of the Black Man. Trans. Dominic Thomas. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Mabanckou, Alain, and Achille Mbembe. 2018. Le français, notre bien commun? BibliObs. https://bibliobs.nouvelobs.com/idees/20180211.OBS2020/le-francais-notre-bien-commun-par-alain-mabanckou-et-achille-mbembe.html.
Macron, Emmanuel. 2017. Speech at the University of Ouagadougou. https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2017/11/28/emmanuel-macrons-speech-at-the-university-of-ouagadougou.en.
———. 2018. Discours au Sommet de la francophonie à Érevan. https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2018/10/12/discours-au-sommet-de-la-francophonie-a-erevan.
Manteau, Valérie. 2013. Interview with Alain Mabanckou: ‘Je participe à la défense de la langue francaise. Que font les xénophones?’. Charlie Hebdo 1119: 15.
Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille. 2006. Il faut dénationaliser la langue française. http://www.multitudes.net/denationaliser-la-langue-francaise/. Accessed 30 January 2019.
———. 2010a. Pièce d’identité et désirs d’apartheid. In Je est un autre. Pour une identité monde, ed. Michel Le Bris and Jean Rouaud, 115–122. Paris: Gallimard.
Google Scholar
———. 2010b. Sortir de la grande nuit. Essai sur l’Afrique décolonisée. Paris: La Découverte.
Google Scholar
———. 2017. Critique of Black Reason. Trans. Laurent Dubois. Durham: Duke University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Mbembe, Achille, and Alain Mabanckou. 2018. Plaidoyer pour une langue-monde. Abolir les frontières du français. Revue du Crieur 2: 61–67.
Google Scholar
Miano, Léonora. 2012. Habiter la frontière. Paris: L’Arche Éditeur.
Google Scholar
Moudileno, Lydie. 2018. Vous avez dit ‘misère(s) de la francophonie’? http://afrique.lepoint.fr/culture/lydie-moudileno-vous-avez-dit-misere-s-de-la-francophonie-16-02-2018-2195512_2256.php. Accessed 26 January 2019.
Moura, Jean-Marc. 2007. Littératures francophones et théorie postcoloniale. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Google Scholar
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sabelo. 2013. Coloniality of Power in Postcolonial Africa: Myths of Decolonization. Dakar: CODESRIA.
Google Scholar
Nganang, Patrice. 2007. Writing Without France. In Words and Worlds: African Writing, Literature, and Society, ed. Susan Arndt and Katrin Berndt, 233–240. Trenton: Africa World Press.
Google Scholar
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. 1986. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: Heinemann.
Google Scholar
Orisha, Ifé. 1986. Sony Labou Tansi face à douze mots. Equateur 1: 29–32.
Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1984 [1754]. A Discourse on Inequality. Trans. Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin Press.
Google Scholar
Sarkozy, Nicolas. 2007. Address at the University Cheikh Anta Diop. http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=437%3Athe-unofficial-english-translation-of-sarkozys-speech&catid=36%3Aessays-a-discussions&Itemid=346.
Smouts, Marie-Claude, ed. 2007. La situation postcoloniale. Les postcolonial studies dans le débat français. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.
Google Scholar
Tadjo, Véronique. 2018. Il est grand temps d’inscrire la littérature du Sud dans l’imaginaire francophone occidental. Le Monde, January 26. https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2018/01/26/il-est-grand-temps-d-inscrire-la-litterature-du-sud-dans-l-imaginaire-francophone-occidental_5247846_3212.html.
Thomas, Dominic. 2005. Intersections and Trajectories: Francophone Studies and Postcolonial Theory. In Postcolonial Theory and Francophone Literary Studies, ed. Anne Donadey and H. Adlai Murdoch, 235–257. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Google Scholar
———. 2013. Africa and France: Postcolonial Cultures, Migration and Race. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Google Scholar
———. 2017. L’Afrique à l’université américaine. In Penser et écrire l’Afrique, ed. Alain Mabanckou, 81–91. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Google Scholar
Toward a World Literature in French. 2009, March–April. Translated by Daniel Simon. World Literature Today 83 (2): 54–56.
Google Scholar
Védrine, Hubert, and Dominique Moïsi. 2001. France in an Age of Globalization. Washington: Brookings Institution Press.
Google Scholar
Vergès, Françoise. 2018a. Ces habits usés de la francophonie! http://afrique.lepoint.fr/actualites/francoise-verges-ces-habits-uses-de-la-francophonie-13-02-2018-2194444_2365.php.
———. 2018b. Décoloniser la langue française: Pour une politisation de la Francophonie. Revue du Crieur 2: 69–81.
Google Scholar
———. 2019. Un féminisme décolonial. Paris: La Fabrique.
Google Scholar
Verschave, François-Xavier. 1998. La Françafrique. Le plus long scandale de la République. Paris: Stock.
Google Scholar
Waberi, Abdourahman. 2010. Écrivains en position d’entraver. In Pour une littérature-monde, ed. Michel Le Bris and Jean Rouaud, 67–75. Paris: Éditions Gallimard.
Google Scholar
———. 2018. Francophonie: Le site de l’Elysée dévoile une vision du monde passablement réductrice. Le Monde, February 14. https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2018/02/14/francophonie-le-site-de-l-elysee-devoile-une-vision-du-monde-passablement-reductrice_5256711_3212.html.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Dominic Thomas

Authors

Dominic Thomas
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dominic Thomas .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
David D. Kim

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Thomas, D. (2021). Bibliodiversity: Denationalizing and Defrancophonizing Francophonie. In: Kim, D.D. (eds) Reframing Postcolonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52726-6_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52726-6_4
Published: 01 December 2020
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-52725-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-52726-6
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics